Top 5 tasks re-opening the office after lockdown

Welcome back to the office! If it’s overwhelming re-opening the office after lockdown, here’s our recommendations for the Top 5 things you need to do for your IT the first days back…

1. Update *Everything*

The big companies have staff and systems that make sure the computers on the desks don’t miss security updates. However in the smaller offices, you have to rely on software to keep itself up-to-date, particularly Windows and MacOS.

Why is this important? The main reason is this is your first and best line of defense against the threat of ransomware. Microsoft and Apple release updates to strengthen the security of your system (although often throwing in feature changes at the same time).

Coming back to your desktop machine, you need to shortcut the backlog of updates that you have missed – you may not have been aware of them before – but if you don’t do this straight away, you’ll wonder why your computers and your internet access are running slow! Don’t wait for the individual updates, get a combined update package now…

For both of these updates, download the update package to a network shared drive – or at the very least a USB flash drive – and start updating your desktop computers. Laptops are less likely to have fallen behind if they have been used by staff at home in confinement.

The aim is to get the updates installed on a number of computers without pulling the same large update files from the internet at the same time. The above update packages are both over 4GB in size! This would easily slow most office’s internet access if many machines were doing this simultaneously.

Windows has an option to reduce this internet usage in an office. It’s called ‘Delivery Optimisation‘ and it’s hidden in the Advanced options for Windows Update…

Even after all of this, Windows updates still need to be checked manually. Many updates do not even appear until after some of the backlog of earlier updates are installed. After rebooting following the above updates, hit the Start key and start typing ‘Check for updates’ to go back to the Windows Update window and force another check for updates manually again. You may have to do this several times!

Any Linux users in your office will also want to know that during the restrictions, several Ubuntu-based distributions got updated, thanks to the release of Ubuntu 20.04. This is a ‘LTS’ release – which stands for ‘Long Term Support’ – which is the most suitable for common business-use. Upgrade advice for Ubuntu is here; https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutorial-upgrading-ubuntu-desktop.

Finally on this topic, it’s not just desktops and laptops to consider. The same check for updates should be done for any servers you have. Windows Server is straightforward to update, but best left to an IT professional to do as more care is needed.

2. Check your backups

This long period we’ve all had of enforced changes to how we work is exactly the kind of situation that could break even the best backup procedure. Consider some of the following possibilities…

Scenario A: Your staff continued working while away from the office…

• Is there a lot of data being uploaded this week, causing the backups to suddenly grow in size?
• Has there been a lot of data uploaded to your office, with nobody in the office to check the weekly process was running correctly and didn’t exceed capacity?

Scenario B: No work was done while away from the office…

• Have you missed a ‘major’ backup – monthly backups that should have gone off-site, for example?
• If your backup system was left idle, can you check all data drives on the backup system are still good? Drives can fail – or more correctly, start to fail – with very little notice if there isn’t good monitoring in place for a server.

The first step is to run a manual backup rather than waiting until the end of the week for a scheduled backup, as your usage is likely to be abnormal this week regardless of what was done during lockdown.

The second step is critical to any backup procedure you set-up. Restore something from the backup. You aren’t actually ‘backing-up’ unless you know you can also recover from this backup. Ideally you would restore everything to a temporary location and sample (check a variety) of different types of data.

The last step is to come back to this next week and confirm your regularly scheduled backup stages are back to normal.

3. Pause and review your IT projects

COVID-19 has had an effect on businesses everywhere, but it’s still out there and the effect on your business may not be fully clear yet. Everyone learned to work differently, even if you are in an essential business and kept your office open.

Here’s an example; large organisations have ‘rolling replacement’ or ‘desktop refresh’ projects to take a chunk of their oldest computer hardware out of the business each year and replace with new computers. Can you imagine these companies today continuing with a policy of ‘desktops first’ and buying the same static boxes as before, without at least reviewing their policy on laptops and working from home?

The same should be true of your small business. Even if you don’t have a budget for new computers every year, can you change how you use what you have already got?

A laptop with the same software and the same specification as your usual desktop computers could disconnect from the desk with a single connector. In fact, with the UK Government allowing part-time furloughed staff, some days in the office, some days working from home, might be the only way to work for several months to come.

For your hardware, look at the business-class Ryzen 4000 series laptops with better battery performance than the previous generation of processors. Check that the USB-C port includes DisplayPort Alternative Mode (often shortened to ‘DP Alt Mode’) to ensure as few cables and dongles are needed to connect to the desk back in the office. Watch out for gaming laptops that offer a lot of performance, but sometimes miss the new essentials like a webcam!

For your budgets, the priority might now be on enabling your staff to work from home, regardless of what computer they use to do so. Upgrading office internet access, installing your own VPN (Virtual Private Network) for securing access to the office or reserving budget for a third-party service that offers similar features (like Zoho Assist). Some of these services have been offered free during the lockdown. Now is the time to check how much they will cost when the free period ends.

4. Prepare your printers

If your office has been unused for some time and you’re using a small office or multi-function printer, you might notice some issues printing.

Let’s break this into the two main types of office printer; ink printers and laser printers.

Ink printers: On an ink printer, the nozzles that transfer the ink from the ink cartridges to the paper can become dry. More exactly, ink dries up in the printhead, meaning that printouts are ‘streaky’ or sometimes not more than a few thin lines of one or more colour.

Normally the printer can sort this itself with a maintenance option to ‘clean printhead’ from either the menu on the printer itself, or an option in the printer driver installed on the computers.

However given the length of the lockdown and the warmer weather some have seen lately, there’s a good chance that more is needed to restore an ink printer to fully working. Obviously the steps vary model-to-model as well as differences between manufacturer. However, HP has uploaded a video showing their recommended process to manually restore a blocked printhead. The principle should apply to other makes also.

Ink printers are notorious for declining in quality without regular use, so even with this process, you may find you need to replace your current set of ink cartridges and possibly the printhead, which is a customer-replaceable part on many printers.

Laser printers: fortunately laser printers are much less prone to print-quality issues when left idle. Laser printers use toner – a powder rather than a liquid – that is transferred to a cylindrical drum before the paper.

However, it is possible that over time the toner may settle in the toner cartridge. If you have heard of others ‘shaking’ the toner cartridges, this can help, but should be done with care. This is not a like mixing a drink. Rather the toner cartridge should be held level, away from the body and tapped laterally against an open hand. This is enough to stir-up the toner and printing should be even again.

A few more things to note…

• If you have a colour laser printer, you have four small toner cartridges rather than one. Repeat for each toner cartridge.
• Toner is like dust and can also irritate if breathed in.
• Do not confuse the toner cartridge with a waste toner collection bottle as used on larger laser printers. The latter should never be shaken.
• Toner is transferred by heat. Use a vacuum or cold water to remove any spillage.

5. Laptop maintenance

The laptops coming back to your office have probably seen more use in the past two months than ever before. Most laptops use a small fan to keep the processor cool. Over time, dust can build up in a laptop around the area that the fan exhausts hot air. This is more likely to have happened during lockdown as laptops at home are often used on soft surfaces such as clothing (‘laptop’, of course!) or left running on a sofa or bed. The laptop will draw more dust and fibres into the computer in these situations.

How will you know if your laptops have this problem? First they will be louder, as the fan will come on more often, and possibly continuously, shortly after the laptop is turned on. The fan will also increase in speed when there is not enough ventilation, becoming louder. The bottom of the laptop will become hot. This may also be felt on the top of the laptop through the keyboard on one side of the unit. Finally there will be no air movement through the grille on the side of the laptop where the warm air normally escapes.

Without opening the laptop, the best that can be managed is a temporary solution. You can purchase a can of compressed air, which should come with a narrow nozzle. When the laptop is turned off, air can be blown into the exhaust area of the laptop, clearing major blockages.

The correct way to fix this is to open up the laptop. A few manufacturers – some Lenovo models for example – make it easier to access the inside of the laptop with a large service panel that can be removed with a few screws. You require a good set of small screwdrivers to work on laptops.

If you have a laptop that does not have a large service panel on the bottom it is better to engage someone to do the repair for you, as there are many ways to damage a laptop when taking one apart for the first time. But if your laptop is out of warranty and you still want to try this, you can search online for a guide or video for your particular laptop model, usually with the word ‘teardown’ included in the search term. Sites like https://ifixit.com and some YouTube channels can walk you through this process.